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Topic: Aging beer and hot summer days. (Read 2934 times)

I live in Riverside California, sometimes the temperature climbs to 115F, and on average we see days of 95F but those hot summer days are not here yet. I have 5 different beers aging on oak cubes right now in the garage, all in their own separate vessels, and they are all big heavily hopped beers with the exception of a lambic. I know 55F is the ideal cellaring temperature, and because of that I want to bring the aging beer into the air conditioned house, but I just can’t. Do you guys see anything wrong with keeping the aging beer in the hot garage for another 3-5 months before I bottle.

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If you don't get in over your head, how are you ever going to know how tall you are.

I think the garage temperature will probably be as the same as the outside temp. There is no insulation throughout the garage, just a roof and four walls. What do you think I should do?

I walked into the "Hanger24 Brewery" In Redlands and "The Bruery Brewery " in Orange County and other neighboring breweries and they all have beer aging in oak barrels in the same room as their kettles and mash tuns. I think those rooms are not temperature controlled and could possibly get up into the 80's 90'sF. What's the difference if I age oak cubed beer in a glass carboy, corny, or a stainless steel conical opposed to an oak barrel like these breweries? I mean I overly hopped, raised the alcohol and even added smoked malt to some of these beer on purpose because I knew the beer was going to have to weather some harsh summer days. What's your take on this?

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If you don't get in over your head, how are you ever going to know how tall you are.

It is highly recommended to store your beer in a cool area, away from direct light, sources of heat and in a constant temperature environment. Speaking of which, temperature is very important, and a major factor in the storing and serving aspects of beer.Beer benefits from cool constant temperatures; usually around 50-55 degrees F is ideal for most beer. Higher temperatures and you'll risk shortening the lifespan of your beer, lower and you'll induce chill haze (cloudy). I store my beer in my cellar at a temp range 60-70F. I recommend moving your beer inside at the very least.

The rule of thumb in brewing (and lots of other chemistry) is for every 10°C increase in temperature, the rate of the chemical reactions that cause staling roughly double. Dr. Bamforth said on the hot side aeration episode of Brew Strong that a beer that would stale in 3 months at 20C will stale in 1 month at 30C, 1 week at 40C, and 1 day at 60C. Conversely, it can take 9 months at 10C. He doesn't explain why these numbers are triple, not double those 10C cooler, but I guess is that it's not an exact rule of thumb. Big breweries actually use this to test the packaged stability of their beer and see what it will be like however many months down the road.

Before I got into kegging, I used to store all my bottled beer in a 75F closet (24C). Storing like this I noticed a slight amount of oxidation on some beers after 3 months, and a lot of it at 6 months. A schwarzbier that has been in there over a year still holds up quite well, which a bit weird, but most everything else that has been in that long is not very good to drink, including an overly oxidized traditional bock and an autolyzed and oxidized maibock.

The other concern that homebrewers have that commercial brewers usually don't is the amount of yeast in the bottle. That will eventually autolyze, releasing unpleasant flavors into the beer (think beef broth). This happens faster at high temperature, just as aging does, so you want to be careful about the amount of yeast that gets in your bottles if you need to store warm or for a really long time.

IMO if you can only store the beer at 95-115F (35-46C) you'd be better off making batches small enough so that you can keep all the bottles inside, or get some sort of cooling solution like another fridge. At that temperature it's going to stale before you can enjoy it.

I don't know what I was thinking... I guess my next move is to bottle those 5 different beers before the summer days really begin to sizzle. Bottling 5 different batches of beer will make for a project next weekend...

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If you don't get in over your head, how are you ever going to know how tall you are.

a garage fridge/freezer for conditioning?The garage temp should get much hotter than outside as solar heat builds with little escape,

I already have two temperature controlled freezers, one is used for fermenting and the other is used for cold conditioning.. I think you're right about the garage temp getting hotter than the outside. I think the only way around this mess is to bottle the 5 different brews and store them indoors. I guess I just brewed more beer than I should have.

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If you don't get in over your head, how are you ever going to know how tall you are.

Before I got a beer fridge, I used the crawl space under the house (no basements here in No. CA). That was better than the garage but probably not 55°. For me, it isn't that big a problem because I consume most of my beers by myself and I am rather forgiving of myself (especially after the third homebrew).